Information acquisition method, information acquisition system, and information acquisition apparatus

Abstract

Provided is a server device (101) including: a transmitting/receiving section (201) for receiving, from a household electric appliance (102), an identifier for identifying the household electric appliance (102) and an operation status of the household electric appliance (102); an updating section (207) for estimating a consumption status of a consumer good using the received operation status so as to update the consumption status of the consumer good stored in a utilization information accumulating section (205) based on the estimated consumption status of the consumer good; and a determination section (206) for deciding whether or not to transmit a confirmation message for confirming the consumer good being used with the household electric appliance, based on the updated consumption status of the consumer good.

1 - 16 . (canceled) 
     
     
         17 . An information obtaining method comprising:
 receiving information regarding a consumer good used by a user with a household electric appliance;   obtaining a remaining amount of the consumer good used with the household electric appliance using information received from a sensor or information input by the user;   deciding whether or not the remaining amount of the consumer good is less than or equal to a predetermined amount; and   transmitting a message including discount information or product sample availability information of a product belonging to the same product category as the consumer good used by the user and different from the consumer good used by the user, when the remaining amount of the consumer good is decided to be less than or equal to the predetermined amount.   
     
     
         18 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , wherein in the discount information, a discount rate of the different product unused by the user is higher than the discount rate of the different product already used by the user. 
     
     
         19 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , wherein the product sample availability information is an information on a product different from the consumer good used by the user, and is unused by the user. 
     
     
         20 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , wherein the message is transmitted to the household electric appliance or an information appliance. 
     
     
         21 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , wherein a quantity of the consumer good at a start of consumption is determined in advance. 
     
     
         22 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , the method further comprising:
 storing, in a first memory section, the remaining amount of the consumer good used by the user;   storing information regarding a plurality of consumer goods in a second memory section associating with a type of the household electric appliance;   receiving an appliance identifier for identifying the household electric appliance;   extracting, from the second memory section, information regarding a plurality of consumer goods which can be used with the household electric appliance associated with the received appliance identifier;   transmitting the extracted information regarding the plurality of consumer goods as a consumer goods list; and   receiving the information regarding the consumer good used by the user with the household electric appliance, from among the consumer goods list.   
     
     
         23 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , the method further comprising:
 obtaining information for identifying the consumer good by reading a barcode provided on the consumer good;   receiving the obtained information for identifying the consumer good;   storing information regarding a plurality of consumer goods in a second memory section; and   extracting, from the second memory section, the information regarding the consumer good on which the barcode is provided, based on the received information regarding the consumer good.   
     
     
         24 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 23 , the method further comprising:
 obtaining information for identifying the consumer good by reading the barcode by means of an information appliance different from the household electric appliance; and   receiving the information for identifying the consumer good, which has been obtained by the information appliance, directly from the information appliance, or receiving the information for identifying the consumer good, which has been obtained by the information appliance, via the household electric appliance.   
     
     
         25 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , the method further comprising:
 storing information regarding a plurality of consumer goods in a second memory section;   reading out information for identifying the consumer good from a wireless tag provided on the consumer good;   receiving the information for identifying the consumer good read out from the wireless tag; and   extracting, from the second memory section, the information regarding the consumer good on which the wireless tag is provided, based on the received information for identifying the consumer good.   
     
     
         26 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 25 , the method further comprising: reading out information for identifying the consumer good from the wireless tag by means of an information appliance different from the household electric appliance; and
 receiving the information for identifying the consumer good, which has been read out by the information appliance, directly from the information appliance, or receiving the information for identifying the consumer good, which has been read out by the information appliance, via the household electric appliance.   
     
     
         27 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , the method further comprising:
 receiving an amount of consumption of the consumer good which is measured by the sensor; and   obtaining the remaining amount of the consumer good based on the received amount of consumption of the consumer good.   
     
     
         28 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , wherein the received information includes an operation status of the household electric appliance, the operation status includes setting information regarding an operation of the household electric appliance which is set by the user for the household electric appliance when operating the household electric appliance, and the method further comprises:
 obtaining the amount of consumption of the consumer good from the setting information by using a parameter determined in advance according to the operation.   
     
     
         29 . The information obtaining method according to  claim 17 , the method further comprising:
 storing, in a third memory section, setting information regarding an operation of the household electric appliance which is set for the household electric appliance when operating the household electric appliance using the consumer good;   extracting the setting information stored in the third memory section based on the received information regarding a consumer good; and   transmitting the extracted setting information to the household electric appliance.   
     
     
         30 . An information obtaining system comprising:
 a server device; and   a household electric appliance communicatively connected to the server device,   wherein the server device includes:   a receiving section for receiving information regarding a consumer good used by a user;   an obtaining section for obtaining a remaining amount of the consumer good used in the household electric appliance using information received from a sensor or information input by the user;   a decision section for deciding whether or not the remaining amount of the consumer good is less than or equal to a predetermined amount; and   a transmitting section for transmitting a message including discount information or product sample availability information of a product belonging to the same product category as the consumer good used by the user and different from the consumer good used by the user, when the decision section decides that the remaining amount of the consumer good is less than the predetermined amount, and   wherein the household electric appliance includes:   a transmitting section for transmitting, to the server device, the information regarding the consumer good used by the user.